One Charming Show!

God, what an exciting, THRILLING improv show, last night! I can't wait to do that again.

Last night, in front of a pretty full Playground house, Bob Ladewig, Stacey Hallal and I performed together as "Charming", our three person ensemble.
For the very first time.
We wore suits and ties. Stacey wore a nice evening dress (cut high for the warm weather) and we did approximately 6 scenes in 23 minutes. (The house manager, Matt Barbera, gave us a little extra time, because we were cooking with gas out there.)

Afterwards, people came up to me at the theater and at the bar, impressed with the show. Other improvisers, people who also do this work, had nice stuff to say about it. Honest appreciation. It was pretty great.

Here's how it all started out...

A month and a half ago, I was in a scene with my coach, Bob Ladewig. We were performing as International Stinger in a short set at Open Court for some reason and Bob was actually playing with us, instead of running lights and sound in the booth. Because of the circumstances of the scene, he and I found ourselves onstage together for large parts of the show. I really enjoyed interracting with him. I couldn't throw something at him that he wouldn't catch. And he remembered details and names and the layout of our invisible set. I really liked that about him. I wanted a chance to play some more with him.

Later, when no one else was around, I approached him about putting together a small 3 person group. Him, me and his girlfriend, Stacey. I've seen Stacey play too and I LOVE watching her onstage. She's pretty fearless and very resourceful. She can also shift easily between high status and low status onstage. I admire that flexibility.

He talked with her about it and she was game. I briefly suggested adding another girl, to balance things out, but they both preferred (and I had no problem with this) to keep it tightly at the three of us, for now.

When a show slot opened up, because of some other group cancelling, Charming accepted it. our first show was set for August 1st, 2006. Last night.

We picked the name collectively. Bob and Stacey were leaning towards "Dashing" as the name. It referred to our unanimous decision to dress formally for our shows, echoing our respect for the early days of improv and for our audience. I was a little less sold on "Dashing" because it also implied "speed" to me and I knew that we weren't going to be a fast-playing team.

I loaded the word "handsome" into the online thesaurus and it gave me nearly thirty or fourty synonyms. I selected ten or twelve of them and emailed them to Bob and Stacey. "Charming" jumped out at them and our name was selected.

(Bob has also said that he likes for the emcee on a given show night to say, "Bob L., Stacey H. and Mr.B are CHARMING." A clever little bit. If I weren't the host last night, we would've heard that bit for the first time. As it stands, someone else will have to do it.)

Because of their commitment to a previous show, we weren't able to schedule a regular rehearsal. In fact, we couldn't even schedule a pickup rehearsal. Busy, busy bees.

The day before our show though, we all had dinner together. We met on Monday at REZZA's on Clark for some fine Persian cuisine. We talked about life and improv and any old thing and eventually we talked about the show.

We decided that we didn't want to play surreal or absurdly fast.
We wanted to deal with actual people failing and succeeding and interacting.
We wanted real commitment to our characters, to bring them to life.
We wanted to explore actual philosophical ideas that we actually have, onstage.
We wanted it to be patient and grounded. With fewer, longer scenes.
We wanted to take our time out there and make the best possible use of our stage time.

I think that the pre-show dinner together is going to become a ritual for us. (Or at least I will suggest that to Bob and Stacey). Maybe we'll select a different restaurant each time, but the check-in and the show discussion will be the same.

At the theater last night, we were the last of three teams to perform. "Kids with Feelings" opened for us and they really hit it out of the ballpark, with their show. Fast, funny, smart, plenty of callbacks, crazy stuff. The audience really loved it.
After them, "The Nice Boys" performed and they played in a similar style. Fast verbally witty, lots of dialects, very physical stuff. The audience loved them too.
Waiting to go on, after them, I got a little nervous that our particular brand of play wouldn't work for this audience. They'd just seen two very good teams explore crazy, wild worlds together. Our show was going to feel like going from 60 mph to 20 mph, instantly.

We took the stage, while the house manager played music for us and took up positions onstage and just began. No suggestion. We didn't need one. We wanted to explore our own stuff. I think the audience was a little surprised by this lack of the formality. The audience, at first, didn't know what to make of us, but they quickly got into it. When the first "edit line" happened and we stayed onstage, the audience knew that they were watching something unusual.

Our first scene was set in an office, where Stacey was complaining about what a bad employee I was, without calling me out, directly. There was also a sub-plot about there being some sexual tension in the office. Which paid off in the last scene.
In the next scene, I confessed my vulnerability for women and my sheer, numbing loneliness to Stacey's macho, over-sexed man's man. We compared wallets. Hers was awesome. Mine, not so much.
In the next scene, Bob used his time teaching Stacey how to shoot a 44 magnum. She nearly blew her head off. Hilarious, stuff. Little Stacey waving a huge hand cannon around.
In the next scene, I returned to my childhood clubhouse to find Bob's pathetic character still living there. He nearly tortured me, but eventually agreed to let me help him.
In the next scene, which was a gem, the three of us were post-cold war spies enjoying cocktails and reminiscing about how we used to try to kill each other and fight for our separate countries. Poison-dart cigarettes, White Russian cocktails for the Russian spy and genuine lamentation of the decline of the Soviet government. Such a smart, smart, effortless scene. My favorite of the night.
In the next scene, Stacey was Bob's cook, she confessed love for him, while serving him breakfast. When he didn't return the feeling, she had a little freakout, turning the scene into a bit of a drama. Smart, smart, smart.
I tagged Stacey out and was Bob's characters valet. I dressed him and when he was facing away from me, allowing me to button up his business shirt from behind, I quietly and firmly kissed him on the back of the neck. (echoing stacey's previous scene). Things got a little awkward, but by assuring him that my intentions were pure, I finally got him to agree to try on some trousers for me. When he went to step into them, I knelt in front of him (in blowjob position) and we just looked into each other's eyes until he figured out what I was silently offering him and ran away. Another long, slow, patient scene.
At this point, the red light went on and as planned, we called back the first scene. Stacey's character got upset and quit, which elevated me to being Bob's boss and I fired him. I stood downstage, happily sipping my improv watercup and they made out by the water cooler on the way out of the office. (The implied sexual tension between them, in the first scene.)

Big applause.
Happy audience.
Lots of congratulations afterwards.

So there it is.

The origin of "Charming" and a detailed description of our first show. For when I want to come back later and see what we did. It's all here.

We're talking about applying for festivals together and maybe doing a run at the Skybox or at IO. Expanding our goals, a little bit. I would love to see any of that happen. I think that this particular combination of performers can go pretty far, together.

Cheers,
Mr.B